


Drag and Lift

by Cirth



Series: Gumdrops [4]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU, Nightwing (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, implied csa, jason finds dick after he escapes juvie
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-24
Updated: 2020-03-10
Packaged: 2021-02-28 07:00:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,711
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22879894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cirth/pseuds/Cirth
Summary: The first thing Jason notices is the shoes: the boy is not wearing any.
Relationships: Dick Grayson & Jason Todd
Series: Gumdrops [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1571485
Comments: 41
Kudos: 460





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Dick is 13, Jason is 11. Batman still talked to Dick while Dick was trying to escape juvie, but in this universe Dick ignores him. 
> 
> It will probably never be continued. Second chapter is deleted scenes.
> 
> Check out this awesome fan art by the wonderfully talented Donna: https://twitter.com/IetsDrawCUTlES/status/1239601491389943816

The first thing Jason notices is the shoes: the boy is not wearing any.

“There are easier ways to die than freezing,” Jason says. He doesn't often engage with strangers on the street, but this guy looks like life chewed him up and spat him out and the slobber on him hasn't even dried yet.

Even in the watery light from a first-storey window, Jason can make out the fantastic purple shiner over his left eye, can read ‘Gotham’ on his hideous green T-shirt, too thin for autumn in the city. Despite his dazed expression and the slump of his shoulders, there is something coiled and hostile about him, like he'd tear out your throat with just his teeth if you gave him a quarter of a reason.

“Juvie?” Jason blurts without thinking, though he already knows. Stupid question. He crosses his arms to make up for his flush.

The boy wets his split lip. When he speaks his voice has a dry, cracked quality, the kind of voice you’d imagine sand to have. He could be dehydrated. Or he could have been crying for weeks. “Youth centre.”

Jason's heard the stories. He's seen the kids. Boys who stagger out with hollow faces, missing teeth and internal organs. Girls who enter alone and come out with a baby. Or two. It makes him see red, but mostly it makes him scared; it's one of his missions in life to avoid that place. “Yeah, that’s what I said. Escapee, huh? Don't worry, no one will look for you."

"You gonna get out of my way?" the boy says acidly. His fingers curl and uncurl. His knuckles are scabbed.

Jason, against all wisdom, against everything he knows, feels sorry for him. That's dangerous, around Crime Alley – pretty soon instead of feeling sorry you'd be feeling a bullet in your back.

But Jason can't leave some kid to die (even if that kid looks a bit older than him). That's exactly what he hates about cops, about politicians and bureaucrats: they'll serve the richest men in town, put glossy posters of Gotham's skyscrapers around the country, and sweep the poor off the streets the moment some big-name foreign celebrity comes to visit so they won't see the failures of government. "Got a home?" he says.

"Fuck off."

"Got family?" He has to make sure the guy doesn't have any concerned relatives who'll come looking for him and march Jason off to the police station once they do.

The boy shoves past him, jaw tight. Jason shoots out a hand to stop him, and the next instant finds himself on his back on the sidewalk, the wind knocked from his lungs, staring up at Gotham's polluted night sky. The boy is straddling him, pushing at his chest with one hand, the other raised and curled into a fist. " _Do not touch me_ ," he hisses, and there is an edge, a desperate kind of fear beneath the anger, that makes Jason's heart clench. He knows that tone. He knows that brand of fear. It's not hard to guess what was done to the boy.

He should probably apologise. “I got a place to crash,” his mouth decides to say.

Instead of breaking Jason's teeth, the boy furrows his brow – the most animated expression he has given yet. “What?” he whispers, finally. "What is wrong with you?"

Jason shrugs, and then winces a little. There are going to be bruises mottling his back tomorrow. "I can give you a list."

“Your folks won’t mind?”

Jason tries to keep his face blank, but he hates it when people ask him that. “Mom died last year. Don't know where my dad is. Doing time again, probably.” 

The boy doesn’t say he’s sorry, doesn’t offer platitudes, just flicks his eyes away, as if in solemn acknowledgement, and then looks at Jason again. Somehow, that makes it easier; Jason can't stand crooning sympathies. They don't do anything but make you more miserable. "Why should I believe you?" the boy says. He doesn't sound curious – just tired.

"No good reason. The place is a dump and there's no fridge. But hey, you can stay here and live in a cardboard box if you like." That last part may be a little sharp, a little mean, but the kid's clearly never been on the streets before and needs to know what'll happen to him if he's alone.

The boy looks at him, still sitting casually atop Jason like the latter is his personal cushion. Jason is starting to grow uneasy under the weight of that unblinking gaze. He wonders if he shouldn't have offered to help.

At length the boy says, "Dick."

Jason blinks. " _What_?"

"My name. Dick."

Jason scrunches his nose. "Couldn't have gone with Richie?" Richard's a stupid, snooty name, the sort that will get you a knee to the balls around here, but Richie's okay. Dick, though. That's worse than Richard even if it isn't stuck up.

"My name is Dick." He is starting to sound peeved, a little frantic, and possibly like he's about to punch him.

Jason holds his hands up in a placating gesture. "Okay, fine, whatever. I'm Jason Peter Todd." He is proud of his name. Not because it sounds nice or has some deep meaning, but just because it's _his_. Jason Peter Todd is the one thing he truly possesses, the one thing he's made his own. "Let me up."

Dick gets off smoothly and offers a hand. His grip is like a manacle, and just as cold. His palms are hard as the underside of seashells.

"I ain't letting you stay for charity," Jason points out, as they begin to walk. They should get that out of the way pronto.

Dick scoffs. "I'd have gone nuts if you did. I'm used to work."

A grin peels across Jason's face. Between the both of them, they might get two square meals a day. "Ever used a lug wrench?" he says.

-end-


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short deleted scenes, because I didn't want to do away with them entirely.

**i.**

Jason wakes the next morning to Dick squatting on the floor by the mattress and looking right at him, like some kind of scavenging bird, and he jumps, flinging out an arm. "What the _hell_?"

"You know anyone called Zucco? Tony Zucco?" Dick says, ignoring Jason's outburst. He is far too energetic for the hour; that zombie-like exhaustion has melted right out of him.

Jason takes the rolled-up towel he'd been using as a pillow and chucks it at him. "No." He hopes he manages to convey _I put you in my house and you repaid me by waking me up before sunrise, you asshole_ with only his tone, since it's too early for him to be articulate.

Dick dodges the towel and continues without a beat, "Big fat guy. Balding."

"Description isn't your strong suit, is it?" Jason scrubs a hand over his face.

**ii.**

There are eyes sliding over Dick even though he is wearing Willis Todd's oversized T-shirt and jacket. Dick doesn't seem to care about the attention, his hands pushed deep into the nondescript brown jacket, his gaze unflinching and bright. He carries himself like he owns the streets, like he isn't swimming in the moth-eaten clothes of a no-good alcoholic rotting away in prison and living with his fifth-grade dropout son.

(His parents were murdered. The police chalked it up to an accident, but Dick clenched his jaw and said, "It was murder. I saw – Zucco. It was murder.")

In high society kids like that might get their cheeks pinched. Here, it will get you chucked into a brothel or sold off to one of the city's crime lords. Jason's going to eventually have a little talk with Dick about making yourself inconspicuous.

"Mikey Little, right?" Dick says. He's been leeching off Jason for about a week, and Jason thinks it's high time he started earning whatever cash he could.

Jason nods. "Don't trust him for anything but the money. And let me do the talking." Mikey has a horrifically inappropriate sense of humour and thinks making stupid kissy-faces at random women is entertaining, but as far as Jason knows he is more or less harmless and pays on time. His reedy frame and pallid face with its permanent blue-black stubble are staples in Jason's life.

It takes Mikey a full five minutes to get to the door after Jason rings the bell, and he emerges scratching his cheek. His sunken eyes land on Dick. "Fresh meat?" he says.

"Name's Dickie Grayson," says Jason. There is no way he is introducing him just as Dick.

"Dickie Grayson?" Mikey says, surprise and amusement in his tone. "What, your mommy thought you'd be a movie star?"

Dick bristles, but before he can put his foot in his mouth Mikey asks, "What skills you got, kid?"

Dick blurts out, "I'm a performer," and Jason resists the urge to smack his palm over his face.

Mikey's face is full of glee, and he looks at Dick with a slow Cheshire grin. "A _performer_ , huh?"

"Cut the crap, you skeevy bastard," Jason cuts in. "He'll be running errands like me. You always bitch that I'm not available half the time, so Dickie here can take my place."

**iii.**

Dick could make friends with a brick wall.

Jason finds him hanging around Momo and Danny, two guys Jason never managed to get on the good side of. Dick is laughing, teeth very white, a bruise spreading lurid on his jaw, and Momo is grinning at him, Danny hanging back trying to look cool. Jason is about to slink away when Dick catches sight of him and yells his name, waving.

 _Broadcast it, won't you_ , Jason thinks sourly, as he comes over.

Dick throws an easy arm around his shoulder, and Jason can _see_ the respect and envy the other boys' eyes. "I was just telling them about the time you jacked the tyres off the Batmobile. Danny doesn't believe me. Tell him, Jay." His eyes are sparkling, cheeks flushed. He's happy, in his element.

It's when Jason trudges back to their apartment and finds Dick talking to _Superman_ at the window that he decides Dick must be some kind of siren, some creature from the otherworld sent to hypnotize every being in existence.

-end-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 💫 lilaclotuses.tumblr.com 💖


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